You can’t do it all. This may seem like an obvious statement, but many doctors act like they can and end up burning out before their time. They try to manage absolutely everything themselves and find they aren’t able to do any of it successfully. That’s why you, as the doctor, should not do the actual marketing in your practice.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a doctor never has anything to do with marketing. In some cases, like brand-new doctors looking to build their patient base, you may actually play a large, potentially primary role in the marketing process. New doctors in a young practice with a small staff have plenty of available time and not much money. It’s your job to bring in patients by using the time resources you have. Schedule blocks on days that aren’t busy to go visit your referring sources. Make the most of your unused appointment hours to write blogs or pages for your website. Take a few extra minutes to grab your smartphone and make quick, simple, informative videos to put online.

Once your practice grows and becomes busier, however, you won’t have the time to do all of that yourself. You won’t be able to spare the hours in your week to go out and visit referral sources or do all the writing, social media, and everything else that goes into your marketing strategy—you’ll be too busy being a good doctor and treating your patients. It’s no good attracting all those people to your practice if you don’t have the time to see them.

This is why busy doctors shouldn’t be doing the actual marketing in the practice. You instead move into the business owner/CEO role. As the head of your practice, you lead and manage your staff, but leave the task execution up to them. This means you know exactly what is happening in your office and how the marketing, training, and day-to-day management works, but you don’t do it yourself. You provide your team with goals and direction; they keep you informed about what they are doing and the results of their efforts. This leaves you room to do what you do best and what patients are there for, anyway: fixing feet and ankles.

If this sounds like an impossible management shift, you may need to take another look at your office organization and staff roles. If you just don’t know how to go about delegating all of this, Top Practices is full of resources, like our Virtual Marketing Director Services, to help you on your way. Browse through our website to learn more, or contact us for more information. You can e-mail us at [email protected] or call (717) 725-2679.